Blissful Banana Bread

BY Rosane Oliveira, DVM, PhD

Our Blissful Banana Bread takes a classic baked good on a wholesome ride to create a better-for-you breakfast/dessert that has all the flavor you know and love. The recipe uses whole wheat pastry flour in place of refined white flour, aquafaba instead of egg, applesauce to swap out oil, and date paste in exchange for white sugar. You can enjoy this flexible recipe in its simplest form, or add in our suggested optional items: chopped walnuts and/or dairy-free chocolate chips. This banana bread will fill your home with wonderful smells as it bakes, and the most distressing time will be the 20 minute cooling period before you can remove it from the loaf pan and dig in.

Add wet ingredients to bowl of dry ingredients and mix until well combined (but avoid over-mixing).

Add optional walnuts and/or chocolate chips (if desired) and stir.

Pour batter into a nonstick loaf pan and bake for 45 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let cool completely (about 20 minutes). Then use a knife to loosen the edges and slide the loaf out of the pan.

*Aquafaba is the viscous liquid in which canned legumes (e.g. chickpeas) have been cooked. Three tablespoons is equal to one egg or one egg white.

**This small amount of salt will help to make the bread less sweet.

Rosane Oliveira, DVM, PhD

Rosane Oliveira, DVM, PhD is Founding Director of UC Davis Integrative Medicine and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Department of Public Health Sciences at the School of Medicine at the University of California Davis. Blending a life-long passion for food and nutrition with over 20 years of scientific experience in genetic research, Dr. Oliveira is devoted to educating people about how food and lifestyle choices can affect genetic expression–i.e. how genes are turned on and off and either cause disease or promote health. She is a native of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and has lived in the US since 2003.